Business development or to develop the business, sounds quite obvious what it is all about; to take it to the next level. But to take the business one step further can be done in many different ways and with this in mind the purpose of the study is to examine and increase the understanding of the phenomena business development. This was done by carrying out a qualitative study, and more specifically an exploratory one, to see what is behind the title of people working with business development. What do they do and how do they do it?

The study shows a number of focus areas that are common among these business developers, mainly to find and exploit new opportunities. This lead them towards the main goal with their positions and what they do, namely to increase profitability and growth. What also got obvious during this study is that even though they carry similar titles, they have very different responsibilities. A pattern appears among the sample, that the bigger organizations seems to have a harder focus on business development while the smaller companies have more divers work tasks that goes beyond the scope of business development.